76/2-.S.HRG.106-261
S. HRG. 106-261
FACING SADDAM'S IRAQ: DISARRAY IN THE
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
SEPTEMBER 28, 1999
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web

MAR 2 7 2000
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
61-363 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
ISBN 0-16-060095-2


4
So I will begin. Eight years ago, following the expulsion of Iraq
from Kuwait, the Security Council of the United Nations passed
resolutions relating to the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction and sanctions. Those resolutions were amongst the
most detailed resolutions ever adopted by the Security Council, but
their key elements are able to be summarized simply.
First, Iraq was to be disarmed of all nuclear, chemical, and bio-
logical weapons and the means of manufacturing them and was
prohibited from holding, acquiring, or manufacturing missiles
which could fly further than 150 kilometers. Second, only after the
Security Council agreed that Iraq had taken all of the disarmament
actions required of it would the oil embargo and the related finan-
cial strictures be removed.
The Security Council created the special commission, UNSCOM,
to carry out this work of disarmament with Iraq. Iraq was required
to cooperate fully with the Commission and to give it immediate
and complete access to all relevant sites, materials, and persons.
Another United Nations organization, the International Atomic En-
ergy Agency, was given a parallel responsibility to that of
UNSCOM, but in its case in the area of its competence; namely,
nuclear weapons. And IAEA and UNSCOM worked hand in hand.
The basic system for disarmament which was established had
three parts. Iraq would declare in full its prohibited materials. The
Commission would verify those declarations, and then the illegal
weapons and related materials so revealed would be and I quote,
"destroyed, removed or rendered harmless" under international su-
pervision.
The key disarmament resolution was Security Council Resolution
687. Another resolution was subsequently adopted under which
UNSCOM would monitor all relevant activities in Iraq as a means.
of seeking to ensure that illegal weapons were not reconstituted fol-
lowing the disarmament phase, and the main resolution dealing
with that monitoring was Security Council Resolution 715.
Now, it is essential to mention that the Security Council had in
mind that the disarmament of Iraq would take place very quickly.
This was reflected in the fact that the declarations, step one, the
declarations sought from Iraq were required to be delivered within
15 days. And thus it was broadly anticipated that thereafter, the
work of destroying, removing or rendering harmless all relevant
materials might be completed in a period of between 9 and 12
months.
Mr. Chairman, I want to emphasize this: 15 days. And 3,000
days later, those declarations are still not in, complete, or honest.
So what has been the practical experience with that basic setup?
Iraq's actions may be summed up as having four main characteris-
tics.
First, its declarations were never complete. From the beginning,
Iraq embarked upon a policy of making false declarations. Second,
Iraq divided its illegal weapons holdings into two parts, the portion
it would reveal and the portion it concealed. Third, to mask its real
weapons of mass destruction capability, Iraq embarked upon a pro-
gram of unilateral destruction, itself illegal, unilateral destruction
of a portion of its weapons. And finally, it refused to comply with
the resolutions of the Security Council, in many ways, very many


6
an ongoing monitoring system. Another draft resolution—and
China now supports that resolution, and I think France has indi-
cated it could do the same.
Now, another draft resolution tabled initially by the United
Kingdom and the Netherlands would in fact establish UNSCOM
No. 2, a successor organization to UNSCOM with a different name
and would charge it with bringing the disarmament task to conclu-
sion. No assumption would be made that there are no more such
tasks, unlike the Russian resolution. To bring those tasks to con-
clusion, and to establish the serious ongoing monitoring system.
This resolution would not simply abolish sanctions, as would the
Russian one, but would suspend them for renewable periods, pro-
vided Iraq remained in compliance with the terms of the resolution.
Now, in recent months, negotiations have tended to focus increas-
ingly on this second British-Dutch draft resolution. There doesn't
seem to be much interest in the Russian-Chinese one. United
States administration has indicated broadly that it could go along
with the British-Dutch draft.
However, recent reports have suggested that it is in fact unlikely
that the Security Council will be able to reach consensus on this
draft, and moreover, statements from Baghdad have indicated that
the Government of Iraq would not be prepared to cooperate with
that resolution even in the event that it were adopted by con-
sensus. Now, Mr. Chairman, this state of affairs has many aspects
and implications, but I want to mention two that I believe are of
grave concern.
One is in the area of arms control, and the other is in the area
of the authority of the Security Council. Now, with respect to arms
control, Iraq's challenge to the nonproliferation regimes is the most
serious and direct challenge ever faced by those regimes, quite spe-
cifically by what I call cheating from within.
This is the worst challenge to the nonproliferation regimes.
Cheating from within is where a state signs up, in this case, for
example, promises not to make a nuclear weapon and the next day
proceeds to do so secretly. Cheating from within.
Iraq has posed that challenge, and I suggest in all of the non-
proliferation fields, nuclear, chemical, biological, the most serious
challenge that those regimes have ever faced, and I think it is a
matter of serious concern. But if Iraq is able to get away with it,
successfully to ignore its own obligations under the various weap-
ons of mass destruction nonproliferation regimes, then the funda-
mental credibility of those regimes as such around the world will
be called into question.
Second, all of the resolutions adopted by the Security Council on
Iraq and its disarmament have the force of international law pur-
suant to Chapter 7 and in particular, Article 25 of the charter of
the United Nations. Now, it follows from this that if Iraq succeeds
in rejecting those resolutions, those pieces of law, it will by that ac-
tion have most deeply harmed the lawgiver itself and its authority;
namely, the Security Council. And, Mr. Chairman, I do not know
what the consequences of that would be, but I suspect that they
would be very broad, maybe even incalculable.
I wrote an article recently published in the current issue of the
journal Foreign Affairs, the September-October 1999 issue of that


8
Prepared Statement of Hon. Richard Butler
Eight years ago, following the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, the Security Council
of the United Nations passed resolutions relating to the disarmament of Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction and sanctions. Those resolutions were amongst the
most detailed resolutions ever adopted by the Security Council, but their key ele-
ments are able to be summarized simply.
First, Iraq was to be disarmed of all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
and the means of manufacturing them and was prohibited from holding, acquiring
or manufacturing missiles which could fly further than 150 kilometers.
Secondly, only after the Security Council agreed that Iraq had taken all of the
disarmament actions required of it would the oil embargo and related financial stric-
tures be removed.
The Security Council created the Special Commission, UNSCOM, to carry out this
work of disarmament, with Iraq. Iraq was required to cooperate fully with the Com-
mission and to give it immediate and complete access to all relevant sites, materials
and persons.
The basic system for disarmament which was established had three parts—Iraq
would declare in full its prohibited materials, the Commission would verify those
declarations, and the illegal weapons materials thus revealed would be "destroyed,
removed or rendered harmless," under international supervision.
The key disarmament resolution was Security Council resolution 687. Another
resolution was subsequently adopted under which UNSCOM would monitor all rel-
evant activities in Iraq as a means of seeking to ensure that illegal weapons were
not reconstituted, following the disarmament phase. The main resolution dealing
with monitoring was Security Council resolution 715.
It is essential to mention that the Security Council had in mind that the disar-
mament of Iraq would take place very quickly. This was reflected in the fact that
the declarations sought from Iraq were required within fifteen days. It was broadly
anticipated that, thereafter, the work of destroying, removing or rendering harmless
all relevant materials might be completed in a period of between nine and twelve
months.
What has been the practical experience?
Iraq's actions may be summed up as having three main characteristics. In the
first instance, its declarations were never complete. From the beginning, Iraq em-
barked upon a policy of making false declarations. Secondly, Iraq divided its illegal
weapons holdings into two parts—the portion it would reveal and the portion it de-
cided to conceal. Thirdly, to mask its real weapons of mass destruction capability,
Iraq also embarked on a program of unilateral destruction of a portion of its weap-
ons. Finally, it refused to comply with the resolutions of the Security Council, in
very many ways, so that the Commission was never able to exercise the rights
spelled out for it in the resolutions of the Security Council.
In practical terms, this has meant that the job of disarming Iraq, which should
have taken about a year, is still not complete.
A little over a year ago, during consultations in Baghdad, Tariq Aziz demanded
of me that I declare Iraq disarmed. This was consistent with the position Iraq had
stated, during preceding months, including in writing to the Secretary-General of
the United Nations and to the Security Council. I refused to do so on the ground
that I was not able to. We had given Iraq a list of the remaining materials, the evi-
dence, that it needed to provide in order for UNSCOM to complete the disarmament
job. Iraq had failed to provide that evidence. Following my refusal to agree to Aziz's
demand, Iraq shut down all work by UNSCOM and the International Atomic En-
ergy Agency in Iraq.
As a result of these actions, there has been no disarmament or monitoring work
in Iraq for a year, and throughout that period the Security Council has been unable
to reach any agreement on how its resolutions may be enforced and/or the work of
disarmament and monitoring resumed.
Earlier this year, in the context of the Security Council's consideration of what
it might do, I directed that UNSCOM provide to the Council a basic document set-
ting out the then current state of affairs with respect to the disarmament of Iraq's
proscribed weapons and on ongoing monitoring and verification in Iraq. That docu-
ment, published as S1999/94, remains the basic statement of position. The initial
response of some members of the Security Council was to seek to suppress this doc-
The Council subsequently undertook its own examination of the position in special
panels of enquiry, and in April 1998 the panel on disarmament and monitoring
issued a report which came to broadly similar conclusions as those set forth in
UNSCOM's document.


12
not know that for sure, but I think it is foolish to make any other
assumption.
So in the period since I was closer to those negotiations, it—I am
sorry, in the main period of those negotiations, it went like this.
OK?
First, the British put down a draft resolution on the table which
the Dutch decided to support. Instant response was a Russian draft
resolution on the table which the Chinese decided to support, so
you had the lines of battle drawn. The United States stood back
and looked for a little while and thought about things. And France,
in a way—I hope I will be forgiven for saying this—in a way that
is, let us say, not untypical and especially creative, the French are
like that—kind of said that it was looking with interest at both
sides. Kind of straddled things.
The Chairman. Two quick questions. Well, go ahead.
Mr. Butler. Now since that time, the negotiation I think has
shown that the Russian and Chinese draft has basically got no fu-
ture because of the summary removal of sanctions without first
getting any kind of disarmament or monitoring guarantees. Al-
though in that time, France joined up to that resolution, and the
United States joined up to the British-Dutch resolution.
But in addition, six or seven other member states of the Security
Council joined up to the British-Dutch resolution, so that is the
main document now, that, as I said in my statement, that is the
one that is the focus of main attention. Last week, however, when
very senior people from the permanent five members of the council
were gathered in New York for the beginning of the General As-
sembly, their attempt to come to consensus on that British draft
resolution, which theoretically has about 11 votes out of the 15 be-
hind it, that attempt broke down. And Baghdad in addition said we
do not care what you do; we are not going to accept it, so I do not
think there is much of a future in this.
The Chairman. Did you ever discuss this with Kofi Annan, the
Secretary General?
Mr. Butler. Did I discuss which?
The Chairman. Did you discuss this entire problem with the Sec-
retary General?
Mr. Butler. On many occasions. But this
The Chairman. Was he sympathetic or did he take any position
or what?
Mr. Butler. I have not discussed these draft resolutions with
him because they became live at the time when I was moving on
to the Council on Foreign Relations and, no, I have not discussed
those with him.
The Chairman. Very well. Let us say 6 minutes. And we wel-
come you, Senator Kerry.
Senator KERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize.
The Chairman. You are Mr. Kerry?
Senator Kerry. Still am, Mr. Chairman. To my pleasure, but the
chagrin of some.
Mr. Ambassador, welcome, and thank you very much for being
here with us. I appreciate the many conversations you and I have
had. I appreciate your confidences during that period, and I also
want to express my respect for the great effort that you made


14
that is because we are not there, and the point I am therefore try-
ing to underline is that it is important to have an arms control and
monitoring presence in Iraq. Its absence harms us greatly. It re-
duces our knowledge in a way that is dangerous.
Now why? Why in Iraq? And the answer is the track record. This
man has shown over a decade and a half a profound addiction to
weapons of mass destruction. He has used them inside and outside
the country, the former meaning including on his own people. As
a means of domestic political control, he has used chemical weap-
ons.
Now that is an established track record. And I add to that what
are the conventional tests of whether or not a crime has occurred.
Did the person have the means, the motive, and the opportunity?
And the answer with Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass de-
struction is, yes, we know he had the means. He was making an
atomic bomb. Mercifully, we stopped him. We know that he made
chemical and biological weapons and used chemical weapons. We
know that he had long-range missiles with which to deliver various
kinds of warheads.
The Chairman. Go ahead.
Mr. Butler. And so we know he had the means. We know from
a variety of ways that he has the motive, and he has demonstrated
that.
Finally, this is what I want to focus on. He now has an oppor-
tunity because of our absence which is larger than any opportunity
he has had in almost the past decade. So that makes for a very se-
rious situation and my position on it is this. I do not know pre-
cisely what is happening in Iraq now because of our absence, but
I think it would be utterly foolish to assume that he is not taking
the opportunity of that absence to reconstitute these weapons of
mass destruction programs. That is what the track record is, and
that is what means, motive, and opportunity represents.
Now, on the other part of your question, why is not the world
community dealing with it? Well, one cannot know precisely, but
one—well, let me have a shot at it. Saddam Hussein has sat out
the world community in a sense. By a process of longevity, attri-
tion, digging in, he has just decided that time is not a factor for
him. And the world community in some respects has grown tired,
tired of the continuation of the same problem, the recurrent Iraq
syndrome.
That has been reflected to me on many occasions. I recall it else-
where, a discussion I had with an ambassador in the Security
Council, and if I may, I will just share it with you now. I will not
name him out of discretion. But a distinguished ambassador in the
Security Council said to me about a year ago, he said, Richard, I
know the man is a homicidal dictator. I know he has been lying
to you. I know he retains weapons of mass destruction, but cannot
Now, I found that obfuscatory nonsense, because it separates the
substance of the problem from the need for a solution. This may
be terrible, but cannot you please take it away from me? The only
way it can be taken away is by addressing the substance. Now, the
world community seems to have grown tired of it. And has then


16
stituted a major threat to those regimes. I think we have to protect
those nonproliferation regimes.
Also, his behavior has deeply challenged the authority of the Se-
curity Council in a way that I think is potentially very dangerous
and could have widespread effects in other parts of the world. Now,
so I—just quickly, the second part of your question?
Senator Brownback. Will he ever accept a legitimate arms in-
spection regime that goes to the heart of developing weapons of
mass destruction?
Mr. BUTlER. Ah, sorry. The track record says no.
Senator Brownback. Do you have anything to believe
Mr. Butler. Well, notwithstanding that, UNSCOM actually pro-
duced a terrific outcome, at the cost of years. It should have been
done in a year. It took 6 or 7 years to get our main outcomes,
which was a fairly complete account of their missile program, and
of their chemical, but not of their biological. And that task took far
longer and was made far harder than it should have been because
at no stage did Iraq show that it was prepared to genuinely cooper-
ate with an effective arms control regime. So I think the answer
is basically, no. They have always resisted that.
Now, what is proposed in the British-Dutch resolution, on paper,
is actually a genuine regime. Now, it is for that reason that I think
one of two things will happen. Either Iraq will not accept this reso-
lution if it is ever adopted, because it is a genuine regime, or it will
accept it, but then seek to water it down from within, in the way
that they tried to with UNSCOM procedures.
Senator BROWNBACK. The reason I raise that point is because of
Saddam's track record and my own belief that what we need to do,
Mr. Chairman, is move forward and press the administration to
move forward on implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act. That
the problem continues to be Saddam. It has been Saddam. It has
been and continues to be his willingness to use these weapons of
mass destruction wherever, even against his own people, and we
need to press the administration to implement fully this act to re-
move Saddam Hussein.
Even if the British and Dutch proposal is accepted, I think we
have got clear operating history on his part. He is just going to con-
tinue to thumb his nose at it, regardless. And now he has got a
weakened international resolve, or at least a much more distracted
international community, if nothing else, to the point that he has
got to be feeling pretty good, that he is just going to ride this one
out unless we really press them to implement this act, and I think
we need to do so now. Thank you for holding the hearing, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Senator Wellstone.
Senator Wellstone. Ambassador Butler, I would like to thank
you for appearing before the committee, and I appreciate how tire-
less you have been in your efforts to disarm Iraq and your extraor-
dinary service to the international community. I have a couple of
questions, trying to stay within my time limit.
You have focused, of course, on the whole question of what is
going on with Iraq's efforts to build long-range missiles and weap-
ons of mass destruction, and I think about the worldwide effort to
limit the proliferation of these weapons. What importance do you


23
Now, one factor I would mention in your theoretical question of
putting the coalition back together was something we did hear
through 1998 as Iraq repeatedly pushed us into crisis, then in No-
vember there was an almost bombing that was called back, and
then there was a bombing in December. In the months leading up
to that, going right back to the time when the Secretary General
went to Baghdad in February, March, April, that period, one of the
things we heard, for example, from potential members of the coali-
tion, senior representatives of Gulf states, was quietly and pleas-
antly uttered, but seriously meant remarks about how in the inter-
vening years between Desert Storm and Desert Fox, you had not
paid us that much attention. But now that it seems you might need
us again, you are coming back.
And I am not in a position to, and I do not make this as a direct
criticism, but I observe that what they were saying was that we
would like to be attended to on a long-term basis, not, and contin-
ually, continual diplomacy, not just on occasions where a sudden
need starts to emerge. And I think there may have been a message
there.
Senator Kerry. Well, I thank the chair and I thank you again.
I just, as a parting comment, I mean, the strategic exigencies that
brought us to understand that it was unacceptable to have the in-
vasion of Kuwait, which was cloaked in a certain amount of rhet-
oric, was far more oriented toward longer-term implications of the
potential of his moving further south, oilfields, economy, as Jim
Baker said back then, it is about jobs, and then they found other
rhetoric to couch it in, but that was a code word for those oilfields,
and I think the longer-term strategic implications of the Middle
East.
Now, that was sufficient to bring all of us to believe, though tim-
ing was questioned, that we had to be prepared to use force. And
we ultimately did. It seems to me that a Saddam Hussein who has
the ability to develop potentially more threatening weapons of
mass destruction, notwithstanding—I mean, it was the show of
force and the determination of the United States that really took
away from him that option previously. If that determination is not
there, then the use that he put it to previously in other cir-
cumstances could become far more attractive again in the future,
which I think is the bottom line of what you were saying.
So I think we are—and I thank the chair for having this hear-
ing—I mean, I think we are talking about a very significant and
large strategic interest to the United States that for various rea-
sons has been second tiered to more emotional and certainly of-the-
moment perceptions of other issues that do not rise to the same
strategic, longer-term interests of our country.
So I think it is important for us to be thinking about where we
go because I have said, and I think you and others have said, as
long as he is there, and it may well be that the Iraqi people will
settle that, but as long as he is there, I think most people under-
stand that that threat remains and it is real, so—and there is a
time of confrontation. So I think we are better to do it sooner rath-
er than later and to be real about our resolve. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. I thank you, Senator.


24
Mr. Butler, we have in the audience several Iraqi opposition
leaders, including the leaders of one main Kurdish party, and a
representative of the Shiites in Iraq. I do not know whether they
want to stand up or not, but the chair wants to welcome you and
compliment you on coming here. Thank you very much.
And finally, on a personal note, Mr. Ambassador, regarding the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I think it ought to be made a
matter of record in this hearing that this treaty would give Saddam
Hussein the very protections that he pursued but was denied in his
efforts to undermine UNSCOM. I will give you several examples.
Saddam demanded the right to veto the participation of par-
ticular nations, specifically, specifically the United States and the
United Kingdom, on inspection teams. CTBT denies the United
States the right to have inspectors on any inspection conducted at
the U.S. request.
Saddam repeatedly sought to dictate which UNSCOM inspectors
could and could not participate in inspections. Several UNSCOM
officials such as David Kane, Scott Ritter, were the subjects of Iraqi
attacks. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty grants countries the
right to reject individual inspectors.
Saddam sought veto rights over specific equipment brought to
the inspections. In negotiations currently underway in Vienna to
develop the inspection regime, countries are being given a veto over
equipment to be included on the approved list for inspections.
Saddam sought to declare certain sites as off-limits to inspec-
tions. The so-called Presidential palaces with which you are famil-
iar were a little more than a safe haven for sensitive documents
that were being concealed from UNSCOM. The CTBT gives the in-
spected party the right to "take measures to protect sensitive in-
stallations" and to declare 50 square kilometers as restricted access
sites. Inspectors under that treaty are not permitted to collect tech-
nical signatures of a nuclear test in those areas.
In sum, Mr. Ambassador, for 8 years the United States—cor-
rectly, I think—led the international community in rejecting Sad-
dam Hussein's effort to hamstring UNSCOM by such tactics, only
for the present administration in Washington to turn around and
codify such measures in a global arms control treaty. So I just
wanted to make that as a record, about my feeling. If you have any
comment that you want to make, I welcome that, too, sir.
Mr. Butler. You are very kind, Mr. Chairman, but I have lis-
tened with great interest to what you have said, but I have no com-
ment to make at this time.
The Chairman. Very good. Well, let me say to you, sir, that you
have honored us by your presence here this morning. I cannot re-
call another witness who was as succinct as you have been and as
responsive to questions. Thank you for coming. And if there be no
further business to come before the committee, we stand in recess.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
o